Mary Richards

Mary came to Brunel University in September 2001 and completed her PhD Resisting the Limits of the Performing Body (University of Warwick) the following year. She runs the Peer Assisted Learning Scheme (PALS) for Drama/Theatre students and provides ongoing support for our dedicated student team of PALS facilitators.

She also co-produces arts@artaud; the showcase platform for theatre, film, music, performance poetry, dance and multi-media presentations from across the School of Arts.

Research Overview

Mary’s research interests include a concern with the performance body in extremis, with the connections between performance, ritual and spiritual practices, with the physics of energy relationships as they relate to performance, and with the politics of representation. She would be happy to hear from potential research students with corresponding interests.

Teaching Activity

Mary leads or contributes to a range of undergraduate modules including Perspectives, Histories, Contemporary Performance Theory, Current Issues in Performance Practice, Contexts of Performance Practice and Placement.

Publications

Canvassing the Will of the People: Surveys, Suffering and Re/presentation” in Secondary Communities ed. John Reardon, Project Projects, New York 2010

“Martyrs and Martyrdom” The Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, edited by Clifton Bryant and Dennis Peck. California : Sage Publications, published September 2009 ISBN 978-14-12951-7-84 - The publication was voted CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2010.

 "Marina Abramovic (Routledge Performance Practitioners)" ed. Franc Chamberlain. London/ New York, published September 2009 ISBN: 978-0-415-43208-5

 "Wasting Away: the diminishing body as public spectacle" in Rubbish, Waste and Litter. Culture and Its Refus(e)als edited by Tadeusz Rachwał , published October 2008 ISBN 978-83-89281-56-2

 “Specular Suffering: (Staging) the Body in Pain” P.A.J: A Journal of Performance and Art, No. 1, January 2008 (PAJ 88), 108-119

“Sewing and Sealing: Speaking Silence” in Art in the Age of Terrorism, Paul Holberton ISBN 1 903470 41 2, September 2005

 “Ron Athey, AIDS and the Politics of Pain” in Body, Space and Technology (refereed e-journal), Volume 3, Number 2, Brunel University - 2003 ISSN 1470-9120 http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0302/index.html

Keynote Speaker

March 2006 Here, There and Elsewhere: displacement, migration and identity De Montfort University and the Phoenix Centre, Leicester 'Imaging Dis-location: Silent Bodies Out-of-Joint'

Conference Papers or Invited Speaker

2012 'This brief encounter – Re: Constructing our ‘situation’
Intersections Conference AV12, Newcastle University March 2012

2006 Rubbish, Waste, and Litter; Culture and its Refuse/als 'Wasting Away: the diminishing body as public spectacle', Warsaw School of Social Psychology, Warsaw, Poland. November (Papers to be published)

2006 TaPRA University of London at Central School of Speech and Drama, London 'The Most Wanted Man in the World: the absent body as palimpsest' September

2006 Performing Human Rights'Staging Protest: A Complete Stitch-Up' Performance Studies International (PSi), Queen Mary's, University of London, June.

2005 TaPRA - Inaugural Conference Manchester University, Manchester 'Food for thought or going nowhere Fast - Marina Abramovic and David Blaine go hungry'

2004 Collateral Damage: Art in the Age of Terrorism Southampton Institute 'Sewing and Sealing: Speaking Silence' December 2004

2003 Discovering Latin America, Cervantes Institute, London. 'Guillermo Gomez Pena: Border Crosser and Ethno-artist' 27-28th September, 2003

2003 Body Modification: Changing Bodies Changing Selves Macquarie University, Sydney 'Stigmata: My Body, My Language', 23-26th April 2003

2002 Narrative of Health, Illness and Disease St Catherine's College, Oxford 'Ron Athey, AIDS and the Politics of Pain'. June 2002

Publications

Journal Papers

(2012) Richards, M., This progressive production: agency, durability and keeping it contemporary., Performance Research: a journal of the performing arts 17 (5)

(2008) Richards, M., Specular suffering: (staging) the bleeding body, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 30 (1) : 108- 119 Download publication

Book Chapters

(2009) Richards, M., Martyrs and martyrdom. In: Bryant, CD. and Peck, DL. eds. The Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience. California : Sage Publications, Inc (2)

(2008) Richards, M., Wasting away: the diminishing body as public spectacle. In: Rachwał, T. ed. Rubbish, Waste and Litter: Culture and Its Refuse/als. Wydawnictwo SWPS Academica Download publication

Books

(2009) Richards, M., Marina Abramović. Routledge